


Circumnavigation

by Regndoft



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: M/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regndoft/pseuds/Regndoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has slipped into his life much in the same way the seasons change; slowly and naturally, imperceptible at first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circumnavigation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Writing format: five things" slot on my Cap_Ironman bingo table. Ended up experimenting with quite a different format overall (yes, the last sentences are supposed to do that). 
> 
> There are also more than one kind of thing that comes in fives, so to speak.

dreams flutter at the borders of his mind as he stirs from the murky depth of sleep, like a diving bell emerging from the sea.

Tony feels the dip of the mattress before the sound of shuffling, naked feet over the expensive rug penetrates his sleep-addled brain. He pulls the blanket further over his head, back into the warmth and darkness, an ember under coal teetering on the edge of dreaming and waking like it was a foreign land.

Winter makes him listless. The snow carries on the wind like shredded paper and a dishwater grey sky greets the inhabitants of New York on the first morning of the new year. But nothing stops Steve from his daily morning routine except the piercing call of duty. ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat’ was never so apt a phrase. Tony imagines him navigating the bedroom effortlessly as he picks up the clothes he laid out the night before, as comfortable with his surroundings in the dark as during the day. He doesn’t turn on any of the lights until he reaches the bathroom. 

It’s always too early. For as long as they’ve shared a bedroom, Tony has yet to muster up the energy to open his eyes to witness this morning ritual, if he wakes up at all. Steve in the mornings is a ghostly presence, a secret, except when he shuffles back to the bed on his way out to press a kiss to Tony’s temple.

Tony buries his face in the pillow and

 

smiles as a strong arm wraps around his waist. 

Tony smells him before he sees him, a rich scent of newly showered skin and a recently laundered shirt, overwhelmingly fresh and clean.

"Caught."

Steve had strategically placed himself between Tony and the coffee machine. He rewards himself for his hunting prowess by pressing a kiss to Tony’s jaw line; Tony lets himself be plundered before Steve lets go of him again, free to prowl along the cupboards hunting unsuspecting porcelain cups. 

It’s a dance they’ve grown into, the way they move around each other, the way they’ve worn their footprints into the polished tiles of the kitchen floor. Brief, quiet moments, before the caffeine and sharp glare of the spring sun on chrome has obliterated the last traces of sleep from Tony’s mind. Technically it’s too late for breakfast this day, but then again four AM is also too late to go to bed. Tony Stark falls asleep with equations unfolding along the corners of his eyes like the silvery brittle wings of insects, if he falls asleep at all. Some weekends Steve even lets him get away with it. 

The first thing Tony asks is who was to be held responsible for the vase of eye-searing, flaming tangerine 

 

tulips on the white bedside table, bare as bone, and Tony hasn’t bothered to read the card because no one who knows him well would think of sending him flowers when he’s in hospital unless it was to gloat.

Tony Stark hates hospitals. He loathes the negative space of the white walls and the smell of disinfectant, and he can’t stand the itch in his fingers as he longs for copper wires and the heavy weight of a welding torch. He was made to stay in motion, constantly moving forward; it’s against his nature to stagnate. Stagnation is too much like deterioration.

Even the artsy photos on the walls are black and white. His vision is tinted monochrome and it’s extremely off-putting.

Hospitals, Tony has decided, were created for the sole reason of letting other people tower over your bed and look down on you, with eyes and voices full of anger and pity and words like “idiot” and “unnecessary risks”. 

He still hasn’t decided if anger is better than pity or the other way around. He doesn’t really want to.

Tony licks his lips and thinks of Steve, the shape of his lips and his furious

 

words that are meant to be comforting, but Tony isn’t sure he’s ready to listen right now.

Central park is alive with dying leaves; dark trunks crowned with burning colours, like torches climbing towards the grey sky, and Tony can taste crisp autumn air and guilt on his tongue. 

“I know what you’re thinking”, Steve says, voice laced with concern. “But you have to learn to let past mistakes stay in the past.”

Captain America walks with decision and intent, an invisible march strummed out by the beating of his heart, but Steve’s gait is languid and relaxed. They brush against each other with every step, so close they could just as well have been walking arm in arm. 

Mistakes, he says, in past tense; Tony’s not sure how to explain that some mistakes never end. Some mistakes grow like malignant tumours and colonise not only the body they live in, but the network of screens and satellite signals that is the 21st century’s digital bloodstream. Some mistakes, he thinks, keep killing long after they’ve been made. 

Before he has the opportunity to reshape these thoughts into words, Steve presses his mouth against Tony’s and swallows them.

They walk on, and the cold wind blows like it wants to make shelter under their

 

skin, hot and flushed against his and Tony thinks of ten things at once and then none.

They come together like lock and key. It’s simple by now, another one of their dances, another sparring session; they know the shape and sensation of each others’ bodies with the experience of long-time lovers, the right spots and angles.

For a while Tony’s world consists of Steve’s hair, damp from the November rain, soft wrinkled sheets and the pounding of hips and hearts. It doesn’t last for too long, but it lingers in the air and the bruises on Tony’s skin. Afterwards his muscles ache pleasantly; when he comments on it less favourably Steve just laughs. He knows Tony inside and out in more ways than one. In all honesty that should terrify him, how Steve has disarmed him and slipped inside, filled empty corners and explored hidden places. But it’s been more than a year now.

Instead it simply fills him with simple happiness to be known so well, and still being loved.

Afterwards they talk, about everyday matters or big things hidden behind small words while outside, the discordant symphony of New York traffic at night keeps them company through the afterglow. 

When their bodies have cooled down and Tony begins to shiver they pull the blankets up. Steve’s good night kisses are always sweet and slow, lingering like honey. 

Tony just smiles, slips into sleep like water seeps through linen and


End file.
